At NY Fed, Geithner Got Cozy With Wall Street

While some feel Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has been an aggressive steward of the public trust, some critics point to his days as New York Fed president as proof he’s too cozy with the very banks that crippled the financial system. The New York Times investigates his tenure there, when he dined regularly with senior execs from Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, and Morgan Stanley.

Critics believe Geithner looked out for banks’ interests over taxpayers’ while at the Fed. Indeed, he argued against increasing taxpayer protection at the banks’ expense, and awarded three no-bid contracts to BlackRock, an asset manager with close ties to the New York Fed, to manage the bailout. But supporters say his character is above reproach. Says one bank executive: “My experience with Tim is that he makes those kinds of decisions 100% based on capability and zero about relationships.”
(More Timothy Geithner stories.)